Building On Culture

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 5, 2011) − The University of Kentucky Arts Administration Program will present a luncheon talk on the boom in construction of arts and cultural facilities across the nation and how organizations can manage these projects successfully. "So You Think You Can Build? Inside the Cultural Construction Process" will be presented by Peter Frumkin, director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at University of Texas at Austin, and Joanna Woronkowicz, a research analyst at NORC at the University of Chicago. The luncheon talk, presented as part of the 2011 Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STPA) Conference, will be presented at noon Friday, Oct. 14, at the UK Student Center Ballroom.

In response to an unprecedented building boom among arts organizations in the U.S. in the last two decades of the 20th century, the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago launched a three-year study of cultural infrastructure generously funded by the Mellon, MacArthur, and Kresge Foundations. The goals of the project were to study the landscape of cultural infrastructure, identify the direct impacts of building on arts organizations that pursued projects, document the broader community impacts of building projects on nearby arts organizations, and examine the strategic management decisions that took place behind major building efforts.

In "So You Think You Can Build? Inside the Cultural Construction Process," researchers from the study will discuss what they have learned about planning and executing cultural building projects. They will describe what the cultural infrastructure landscape looked like between 1994 and 2008 and how the landscape evolved as it did, how organizations who pursued projects fared, all while using real-life cultural building stories as examples. The result will be an in-depth look at the practice of cultural building and a discussion of how organizations that pursue these types of projects in the future can manage them successfully.

Peter Frumkin is a professor of public affairs, as well as director of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His research and teaching focus on nonprofit management, philanthropy and social entrepreneurship.

Joanna Woronkowicz is a research analyst at NORC at the University of Chicago and a doctoral candidate of public policy at the university's Harris School of Public Policy. Her research focuses on arts and cultural policy analysis, nonprofit arts management, cultural economics, and cultural infrastructure. At NORC, Woronkowicz serves as the project director and researcher on a study of cultural infrastructure in the United States.

The luncheon featuring the talk, "So You Think You Can Build? Inside the Cultural Construction Process," will run from noon-2 p.m., Friday, Oct. 14, at the UK Student Center Ballroom. Tickets to the lunch are $14. To register to attend the luncheon talk, individuals should make reservations by Oct. 7 by email to stpa@stpaconference.com or phone at (859) 257-9616.

The Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STPA) Conference, "Arts Management in the 21st Century: Changes and Continuities," is being held Oct. 13-15, at UK. This is the 37th presentation of the annual international conference. A selection of papers presented at this STPA conference will be published in a special issue of The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society.

Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STPA) is an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students that explores key trends, practices and policy issues affecting the arts around the world. Conference participants are drawn from a broad range in discipline including, but not limited to, political science, sociology, economics, law, management, arts education, art history, museum studies, cultural studies, education and policy studies, as well as arts managers and artists. This is the first time UK has hosted the conference.

"Arts Management in the 21st Century" is presented with support from the UK College of Fine Arts.

For more information on the upcoming STPA conference, visit the conference website online at http://stpaconference.com/ or e-mail to info@stpaconference.com.

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, (859) 257-8716 or whitney.hale@uky.edu